Green Machine isn’t an explicitly political play, but it is set in gentrifying Mt. Pleasant, so issues of race and class are never far from the surface. How do you think about the play?

I do see Green Machine as a political play. As a person of color, you realize that politics will always affect you in some sort of way. You see how systems affect people in ways they don’t even realize. That understanding really helps me in getting into roles.

In this show, Nate is definitely a character who has money, which is different from my upbringing. But I also see the shared identity of being a Hispanic kid spending his college years in D.C. In every single interaction, it has an effect. There is a lot of diversity within this city, but all the sources of power, especially within institutions, within universities, they tend to be white led. And that ultimately affects you no matter your income, no matter who you are, just based on the color of your skin.

No matter his financial standing, Nate goes to Catholic, which is a very majority white school. The theater department does a better job with diversity. The head of the department is very socially aware, but it doesn’t change the fact that a place called Catholic University tends to put off people of color. And so my entire experience being a person of color made me really identify with Nate, even where we don’t have similarities. I know that we’ve ultimately had very similar experiences in the context of race and being that one in the crowd.

What was your experience like growing up in Fauquier County?

Fauquier is very white, but it’s a very low-income area, too. It was a very Trump-supporting county. The 2016 election, that’s what really led me to socially progressive values. It made me realize that despite having my friends and my community there, there were people who saw me as other. It made me realize how issues of race and gender and all these other things are used to distract us from our shared struggle in this economic system.

I have four sisters and one brother, I grew up in a single-parent household, and I’m the youngest. So I always knew that money was going to be tight. In that sense, it matured me. But that was more of a personal growth thing. It’s 2016 that really kickstarted my whole journey into politics.

Was theater a part of that political awakening?

It started out completely unrelated, but it comes together. The 2016 election was my freshman year of high school, so I’m getting much more knowledge on race issues, on gender issues. My sophomore year of high school I just took theater as an easy class. And there was a girl in the class that I liked. When she asked me to audition for the musical—it was Beauty and the Beast—I said sure. I didn’t think it would be a thing, but it was an incredible experience. And that kickstarted me liking theater.

What really did it for me was when I decided I’d do the high school drama institute at Catholic that summer. That’s where I met Brandon McCoy [an acting instructor at the institute and a lecturer at Catholic]. He’s been very formative in my understanding of theater.

He gave me the advice to read plays, just read a ton of plays. To think of theater as understanding other people and how their world affects them. To think how the stories that we tell will resonate with other people. I was 16 years old at the time, about to start my junior year of high school, and that’s when theater and politics, the two things, grow into one another. Theater is where I found a space to make my voice heard, to tell these stories that were so important to me, that I didn’t really know how to say otherwise. Theater became my political outreach.

You’re majoring in musical theater at Catholic. How did that become your focus?

I chose Catholic partially because they gave me an incredible scholarship. And also because it has a bachelor of music program as well as theater. I’m just as interested in the music as I am with the acting and the storytelling. A lot of people see musical theater as just fun, as silly. And sometimes it is. You can't really separate a musical from the fact that people are breaking out into song.

But I believe music can tell a story in itself. My example is Next to Normal. I got to do it last spring. It tells an incredibly compelling story [about a mother struggling with mental illness and the impact on her family] and the music is there to aid it. It’s the music ultimately that hits you in the heart.

The teacher that I was just talking about, Brandon McCoy, he was into acting in a very classical way, but he didn’t look down on musical theater. Instead, he saw the music as another form of art and it’s something that I still carry today. What matters is that you use the music to help tell the story.

You talk about acting, about politics, in a really mature way. And in Green Machine, you’re working with a cast of veteran actors, but from the very first rehearsal you’ve held your own. What do you think explains that?

Well, first, thank you. I really appreciate that. I won’t say that there wasn’t an intimidation factor. The moment the bios got uploaded onto the website, every single one of them was just, it was a little scary. But in a way, it also calmed me down a little bit to know that these people were so successful. And yet I’m right here with them. I got here by auditioning and working hard.

Once I got in the room, of course, that intimidation sort of came back, but it all came back down to trusting in myself. I’m a big script analysis person. And so I read and I reread. I just had to trust all the research that I had done, trust my instincts, and once I’m there on the stage, I don’t have time to worry about what this professional actor thinks of me. I can only do what I do. Instead of worrying about stage fright, I just stay focused on the character.

What’s next for you? Do you have an immediate focus and, if we can ask, a long-term goal?

This next year is probably going to be one of my craziest. First off, I’m in the fall production of Twelve Angry Jurors at Catholic. I hadn’t been in a play in so long, so it’s going to be fun to be in a full two-hour play. This is also the year of my junior recital. So a lot of time is going to be put into that.

Beyond that, it’s the year of me starting to get into the D.C. theater scene. For the first few years at Catholic, you can’t audition outside the university because they’re very class-intensive years. This year is when we’re finally allowed to start auditioning around the city. And so I hope to make some connections. If any casting directors like the show, please feel free to contact me.

Longer term, I do know that one of my biggest interests is directing. I’ve taken quite a few directing classes and it’s definitely been very compelling to me. We’ll have to see how acting goes, but I’d like to get some experience directing. I’ve been looking into directing master’s programs too. One of my directing teachers, Eleanor Holdridge, she’s been incredibly helpful. I definitely plan on continuing to talk to her about next steps. The future is uncertain, but that doesn’t mean I’m scared of it.